


The Man Who Thawed Winter

by fae_of_the_rose



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU, Gen, M/M, but I'm putting it in the tags anyway, faerie tale, kinda sorta AU anyway, okay so it's only Steve/Bucky if you want it to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 19:57:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1870413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fae_of_the_rose/pseuds/fae_of_the_rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long ago, there was a kingdom. In this kingdom, there lived two boys who went on to have many adventures. </p><p>This is one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man Who Thawed Winter

**Author's Note:**

> So about two months ago I asked my friends to give me a pairing or a fandom and I'd write a story in faerie tale style for it. One of them requested Steve/Bucky and while this isn't straight up shippy, I liked it enough to post it here.
> 
> This is also sorta AU. The basic story of WS is there but it's not a straight up retelling.
> 
> No place but AO3 and my tumblr, fae_of_the_rose, have permission to host this fic.

Once there was a kingdom and in this kingdom lived two young boys. I could tell you the story of these boys, the story of how a sick and weak boy gained the strength of arm to match the strength of his heart and the friend who was forever by his side, but that story has been told elsewhere and by better people. No, this is the story of what happened to those boys when they were no longer boys but men, and their games of heroes and courage were traded for battles and strife.

For battles and strife they faced, these men who were once boys. They had gone to war for their kingdom and for their deeds the weak man who was now strong became known as the Captain. His friend, the boy who had always been strong but perhaps not as good as the Captain, received no such name for his work was done in the shadows. But his work was no less important and the Captain valued and loved his friend in the shadows above all others.

The closeness of their friendship surprised many, but they were not surprised that the Captain and his friend died so soon after the other. The Captain’s friend fell from a cliff and into an icy ravine one day, and the Captain was lost at sea not a week later. No body was ever found, however, and many people would tell stories that one day, the Captain would return.

And return he did, but this is not where our story begins. We have all heard the stories of the Captain’s return, how he (and other brave warriors) saved the kingdom from goblins and horned giants armed with only an enchanted shield, and I do not need to tell them here. Our story begins after this battle.

After the battle against the goblins and their horned masters, the Captain returned to the capital city of the kingdom with one of his allies from the battle, a woman made of shadow and blood known only as the Spider. While many people were afraid of the Spider and her work, the Captain saw that there was good in her for the shadows do not make you evil. Together, the Captain and the Spider fought to defend the capital city from invaders and for a time they were successful.

One bright summer day, a strange chill crept over the land. While you and I might consider any chill in the summer strange, the people of the land were more or less accustomed to such things as thunder mages and frost giants were commonplace. This chill, however, was not the brutal chill of a frost giant or the mistake of an ice mage. This chill was far more subtle, so subtle that at first many citizens of the capital did not believe it was even there. But it was, and the longer it was ignored, the stronger it became until one day, a blizzard blew in from the north and froze the capital solid. 

The Captain felt this chill and was afraid for he knew the source of this cold. He had lost his friend to this cold, as they had been scaling a cliff to the source of this cold when he had fallen and been lost. But he knew it was possible to defeat this cold and so he went to his friend the Spider.

“Spider,” he said, “this cold is not natural and it will not melt on it’s own. It is the work of the King of Ice. He is not as dead as I thought he was and he has frozen the kingdom.”

The Spider nodded; she too knew the source of the cold and had been planning to defeat it herself, with tricks and shots from the shadows.

“I am going to find the King of Ice and I will defeat him again, this time for good.”

“You will die if you do not do it my way,” she warned. “He will expect an attack such as yours.”

“And he will expect an attack such as yours,” the Captain replied. “We will need to work together if we are to defeat him.”

The Spider thought and thought and then she nodded for the Captain spoke the truth. He would expect them both, but he could only defend against one.

So the Captain and the Spider gathered supplies and spoke to the king and were given permission to go and defeat the King of Ice and the people of the capital wished to see them off for luck. The Captain the Spider, who would have preferred to simply leave and not be noticed, found they could not argue and so allowed it though they knew it to be a mistake.

And it was. As the Captain and the Spider were leaving the town, an arrow of ice came from the shadows and hit the king. Another came and hit the king’s trusted advisor. Still more came and hit several of the gathered people. As panic and mayhem set in, the Captain and the Spider saw the shape of a man fleeing.

“Spider, who was that man?”

“There was no man, Captain. That was a wraith, a servant of the King of Ice known only as the Soldier,” said the Spider. “I am not surprised to see that he is here. He now knows that we are going to defeat his master. It will be impossible to save the kingdom now.”

The Captain frowned. He was not one to think that things were impossible, he who had once been sick and small and was now strong and hale, he who had been lost at sea for seventy years and returned to his homeland not a day older.

“If we stop him,” he said, “and if we stop him before he reports to his master, his master will be none the wiser and we can defeat him easily.”

“It is impossible to stop the Soldier. He is ruthless and perfect.”

“It is not impossible. Let’s go.”

The Spider sighed and shook her head but followed after the Captain. There would be no stopping him and so it was better to simply follow.

For weeks they traversed the frozen kingdom, seeking the Soldier. For weeks they found nothing and the Spider began to lose hope.

“Captain, let us forget the Soldier and head north to the Kingdom of Ice!” she said. “We are only wasting time as the kingdom grows--”

Whatever the Spider had been about to say was lost as an arrow of ice pierced her shoulder and she collapsed. The Captain grabbed his enchanted shield and spun around to face the Soldier, for he knew he was here. 

“Come out!” he called. “Come out and face me!”

He did not expect a response and so he was surprised to see a man come out from the shadows around them. He was tall and dark, with an arm of metal and ice and face that was colder than the tundra of the north.

He was a man with the face of the Captain’s lost friend.

The Captain gasped. “I know you!”

“You do not,” replied the Soldier in a voice as cold as death, “for I am of ice and frost and blood and no know one.”

“You were once a man like me, warm and full of love! We are friends.”

“We are not, for I am a weapon of my King and a weapon does not have friends.” But there was something in the Captain’s voice that was causing the Soldier to doubt this. He had never known anything but numbness and the bitter cold where his heart should be, yet the Captain’s words were stirring something inside of him.

“You are not a weapon, my friend. You are a man and have been tricked.” The Captain held out a hand. “Come with me and we will heal you.”

The Soldier looked at the Captain, this man who was so sure that the Soldier was once like him.

The Soldier readied his ice arrows.

Before he could shoot the Captain, a falcon’s cry cut through the frozen air. The Captain was distracted and the Soldier vanished as a man raced towards them. He was a friend of the Captain’s, and a falcon sat on his shoulder.

“I come from the king,” he said. “The King of Ice has taken over the capital and you and the Spider are needed.”

“The Spider has been shot by the Soldier and the Soldier is my friend who I thought lost,” the Captain explained as he began to tend to the Spider. “I have to save him.”

The man with the falcon did not believe the Soldier could be saved but he knew that the Captain would not listen. He helped the Captain tend to the Spider and together, they returned to the capital.

The man with the falcon had spoken true, and the capital was now a frozen wasteland. There were no signs of life beyond the King of Ice’s golems and wraiths and for a moment the Captain despaired of saving his friend and the kingdom.

But the Spider, who by now was able to stand on her own and was no longer in much pain, felt no despair. “He will be in the castle,” she said, “and probably in the highest tower.”

“I will send my falcon up to the towers and find the one where he is hidden,” said the man with the falcon and he did. The bird returned quickly and in words only the birds and those close to them could understand, told his master where the King of Ice was located. “He is in the east tower, he says, but there is something in the west tower that has disturbed my bird,” explained the falconer. “He says it is a man in ice.”

“The Soldier,” said the Spider and the Captain as one. “I will go to him,” said the Captain, “for I do not doubt that if the King learns that we are coming he will send for the Soldier. If I am waiting for him, I can hold him off.” And hopefully save him, though he did not say that.

The falconer and the Spider knew the Captain’s heart, though, and did not argue. They headed to the east tower and the Captain to the west.

The path to the western tower was dangerous, full of wraiths and deadly walls of ice that seemed to move on their own. The Captain was not deterred, however, and he eventually made it to the room where the Soldier was being held.

What he saw in that room broke his heart. Here was his friend, one that he had lost and loved for seventy years, a prisoner of the very King they fought to defeat. He saw now what had happened to his friend after he fell. The King had found him and taken him prisoner and had turned him into a tool. There had been rumors of the King’s ice, that if a man was stabbed through the heart with a shard of the ice he would become a servant of the King. The rumors, the Captain was dismayed to find, were true. His friend lay before him in a coffin of ice, eyes shut as a sharp and deadly icicle hovered over his heart. The tip was beginning to penetrate his skin, sending rivers of ice throughout the Soldier’s veins.

With his enchanted shield, the Captain began to break the ice away from his friend. “You are more than this!” he cried. “You are more than ice and frost and death. You are my friend and I have missed you for longer than the sun has been in the sky. I thought you were dead and I did not look for you and I am sorry for it. Come back to me, my friend, and walk in sunlight and springtime again.”

As the ice around the Soldier shattered, the ice in his veins began to melt and he began to stir. It was not until the Captain destroyed the ice over his heart that he woke up, confused.

“Where am I?” he asked. “The King has not called for me and the ice in my heart is not as cold as it was. Where am I?”

“You are in the castle of the king and I have freed you,” replied the Captain, delighted to see his friend alive. “The King of Ice has held you prisoner for many years, but I am here now and I have saved you.”

The Soldier looked at the Captain. “I do not remember you,” he admitted, “but when I returned from attacking you the King looked into my heart and was angry. He said I was thawing. I think your words in the wild began to melt the ice in my heart. Perhaps you will be able to finish it.”

As the Captain embraced the Soldier, the ice around the castle and kingdom melted away. Though it was the Spider who defeated the King of Ice while the Captain saved his friend, the people believe to this day that it was the Captain who thawed the eternal winter.

And when the Captain looked to his friend and saw his smile returning or heard a laugh that was not tinged with ice and cold, he could believe it, too.


End file.
